the blog for single, over-40 women

School’s in Session

School has begun with a rush! I’m two days in and have papers due, hundreds of pages to read, and classes that go from early morning to evening.

I love being a student, but I hate the false urgency of all the deadlines.

Maybe this is a metaphor for my life right now, though.

Lately, I have been hearing sermons–two this week–reminding me to stand on the promise of God. Though God’s promise might seem impossible, I must believe the word that God spoke to me.

Also this week I randomly came across an old, old email I sent to friends, which was updating them on things God was saying and doing in my life. Nearly five years ago to the day I was lamenting losing an offer on a house. I felt sorry for myself, and forsaken by the Lord about the house, about my dreary job, about life and love. But God gave me a word from Scripture that shifted my perspective. I wrote this to my friends:

“[I feel like I’m wandering like the Israelites in the desert.] But maybe, like the Israelites, it’s not God who’s holding me back. Maybe, like the Israelites, God wants me to go into the land, which is a good land. Maybe I’m scared, like the Israelites, and that is the whole problem.

“It’s been clear to me for at least the whole summer that God wants me to write, wants me moving forward in ministry, wants me to release the weight that I’m holding onto, wants me to be unafraid to be successful at what He’s leading me to do … and the thought just struck me that God wants me to have a different life! Not just a different job. Not just a different place to live.

“And I am resisting Him. On all fronts.

“The only thing I want to do is to search for a place to live, find one and fall in love with it, even though I know, in the back of my mind, that I’m not going to be able to have or to keep it. Instead of seeking out the new life, all I want to do is remain in this familiar place of longing, chasing and being rejected. I’m replicating the status quo of my life. Going in circles. It’s ME, Lord, isn’t it?”

Five years ago I sensed a life change coming. Eventually, miraculously, in spite of me, it came.

The false urgency of the deadlines imposed by my professors are like the false urgency of the world’s timetable. The world is telling me that I have to do and be whatever I am going to do and be (wife, mother, debt-free) Now. At once. It should just happen already. It should have happened yesterday.

But this is wrong.

I am in God’s hands, and God does not rush. God’s plans unfold at just the right pace.

In what ways have you been reminded lately to trust God’s faithfulness?